Darksiders, a creative reinterpretation of the Christian end-of-the-world scenario that follows the misadventures of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, returns, this time focusing on the irate and unpredictable Fury. She's tasked with capturing the Seven Deadly Sins, demons that have escaped into our world. Armed with a barbed whip and wicked agility, Fury explores the ruins of the modern world and exterminates menaces in an interconnected, Metroid-esque environment. The combat system has a few annoyances, such as an unreliable camera and frustrating mobs, that hinder the experience. Still, Darksiders III is a solid PC game that stands well on its own, despite being overshadowed by its predecessors.

A New Darksiders

Darksiders III, like the previous games in the series, is a combo-centric, beat-'em-up action game, but it still manages to establish its own identity. Darksiders III differs considerably from its predecessors, though in truth, they all differ significantly in one way or another. The original Darksiders is The Legend of Zelda blended with God of War. Darksiders II has free-flowing combat that lifts a bit from Devil May Cry, while its looting and character-building mechanics recall Diablo. Darksiders III, on the other hand, borrows heavily from Dark Souls and Bayonetta. In other words, Dark Souls III has intense action, but frames it around challenging battles between small groups of enemies strewn throughout an interconnected game world.

Like Dark Souls' protagonist, Fury re-spawns at sparse, fixed checkpoints upon death, and must make a corpse run to collect the souls and experience she drops whenever she kicks the bucket. Her stock of healing items is replenished upon re-spawning, as well. As you unlock new power-ups, you can open up previously inaccessible barriers that reveal shortcuts to areas you've been to earlier. Darksiders III even incorporates sneaky enemy ambushes into the mix, like the Souls games do, so you never want to run into a new area without cautiously investigating your surroundings.

Darksiders III incorporates puzzle elements into the exploration, and you must make use of the unique elemental abilities you acquire throughout the story to solve them. The first power you get, called Flame Hollow, gives you a new weapon, and more importantly, the ability to charge your jumps to reach greater heights. You are ablaze when performing this jump, and many puzzles from that moment on require the use of this ability to make progress. Stasis Hollow, acquired later in the game, lets you freeze objects and stand on water. Storm Hollow lets you float in the air and ride air currents. Experimenting with these powers is critical to making progress, and to finding secrets.

Unfortunately, the satisfaction of unlocking shortcuts in Darksiders III's interconnected world is lessened given the game's linear nature. There is a clear path that you are expected to take, and deviating from that path either pits you against vastly overpowered enemies, or against obstacles you cannot clear yet. There is plenty to explore and find, however: every environment is littered with recovery items, valuable upgrade materials, and bonus experience to earn, as well as powered-up enemy variants to tackle if you feel up to the challenge. I can't knock Darksiders III for its linearity too much, as I had a lot of fun backtracking to earlier areas with the new abilities to acquire goodies.

Demon-Slaying Combat

Darksiders III's combat system is a decidedly more grounded affair than in the earlier games' fight mechanics. Fury is extremely agile, and this is where Darksiders III channels Bayonetta. Fury's dodge is her primary defensive ability. She can sidestep attacks, or dash under them with decent timing. More importantly, however, Fury can unleash a potent counterattack if she dodges just before she would have gotten hit.

A successful dodge results in a neat cinematic slowdown, and her next strike unleashes a powerful blow. This dodge is highly satisfying to pull off, and has the bonus effect of interrupting an enemy's combo, making it an effective way to create breathing room. You also get unique counterattacks depending on the direction in which you dodge. Dodging left or right results in a spinning down-crack with Fury's whip, while evading towards an attack gives you a launcher—one of the very few ways you can effectively send enemies airborne.

Fury is always armed with her whip, but she is rewarded with new power-ups, called Hollows, as she takes down sins, each of which gives her access to a secondary weapon. The Flame Hollow gives Fury a pair of fiery, bladed flails. Storm gives you a short spear, Stasis gives you a sword, and Force gives you a giant hammer. Each weapon can be incorporated into combos alongside Fury's default whip, giving you a beefy range of attacks to utilize as you mow down monsters. You cannot swap between Hollows on the fly, as there's a cooldown period for each, which is a shame. But the combination of whip strikes and secondary attacks still gives you a great range of combos to use.

What's more, each weapon also has a unique counterattack. The Flame Hollow's counter results in a highly damaging rush attack that also sets the target ablaze. Storm Hollow is a nasty spear-throw that makes excellent use as a ranged counter. These counterattacks, combined with the highly threatening enemies you face, make you feel like a glass cannon, as you are constantly dancing on the edge of death while tearing targets to pieces. It is extremely satisfying, and I rarely felt annoyed by the sparse checkpoint system, as it re-spawned fresh new enemies for me to fight again.

With that said, the lack of effective aerial combat is a bummer. In previous Darksiders titles, juggling enemies was so easy it felt like second nature: War could launch targets by simply holding an attack button. Death had a variety of juggles, including one he could perform immediately after a dash. Fury has no such aerial potential. She has aerial combos, yes, but they are almost never needed, as there is no dedicated launching attack at your disposal. One of her dodge-counters has juggle capabilities, but this has flaws that make it less satisfying to use. For one, you can only use it after an enemy has attacked. This is similar to Nier: Automata's dodge-counter, yes, but Nier also gave you dedicated launch attacks if you wanted to lift enemies more aggressively, rather than defensively.

Secondly, the launcher isn't very effective, as anything tougher than a basic grunt shrugs off the launch effect. The combat, truthfully, doesn't need juggling, as you have plenty of moves to keep you busy on the ground. But I certainly miss how easy it was to slap a demon into the air and style on it, and wish it were still feasible in Darksiders III.

Another gripe I have with combat is how virtually every enemy's attack is a lunge of some sort. There is no effective way to outmaneuver your enemy outside of dodging: every attack they attempt sends them flying towards you at Mach speed. This is never a problem in one-on-one combat, but when fighting multiple enemies at once, having several attacks speeding at you at the same time means that you will dodge one and invariably get tagged by the others. The clunky camera only makes this worse. All too often, you fight enemies close to a wall and attempt to reposition the camera, only to have it climb up the wall and give you a prime view of the top of Fury's red head. As you can imagine, this is not the most ideal vantage, especially when enemies are so fast and aggressive.

Style and Substance

Darksiders III is a good-looking game, thanks largely to its art style and colorful palette. While series creator Joe Madureira didn't have much of a hand in the game except for Fury and a few recurring characters, developer Gunfire Games did a solid job of emulating the art style of the previous two games. Enemies have a distinctly cartoony look that could fit right in with comic book panels. Likewise, environments sport vivid coloring, strong shading, and exaggerated landmarks to fit alongside the characters and enemies. Darksiders III utilizes some nice particle and lighting effects to make combat pop. The animations are fantastic, too, with both Fury and her demonic adversaries moving with style and flourish.

Darksiders III isn't too graphically demanding, asking for a minimum 3.5GHz AMD FX-8320 or Intel i5-4690K CPU, and either an AMD Radeon R7 370 or a Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 GPU. My own rig uses a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 CPU and an i5-4690 CPU. The gaming desktopran the game at a mostly smooth 60 frames per second, with the occasional hitch or slowdown during some character interactions. And as a Steam game, Darksiders III supports Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, and Steam Trading Cards.

A New Beginning

Darksiders III is not nearly as ambitious a game as its predecessors, given its comparatively small (though still interconnected) world and focus on reactive combat with tighter groups of enemies. While this entry may seem limited compared to the previous games, it still delivers a consistent and enjoyable experience.

As it stands, Darksiders III is a pleasant action-adventure game with solid gameplay mechanics, excellent visuals, and a neat little world to explore. If demon slaying and puzzle solving is your cup of tea, you can't go wrong with what Darksiders III is serving up.

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About the Author

Gabriel Zamora is as passionate about writing as he is about video games and electronics, and his fervor has led to game and tech article contributions in a variety of online publications including PCMag.com, Examiner.com, 2D-X.com, and Multiplayergames.com. When not criticizing the state of gaming or reviewing tech, Gabriel spends much of his time... See Full Bio

Darksiders III (for PC)

Darksiders III (for PC)

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